Pelosi says Obama should use 14th Amendment to Raise the Debt Limit

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) urged the president on Sunday to drop his resistance to the idea and simply bypass the upcoming debate over raising the debt ceiling by deeming the entire cap unconstitutional.

Appearing on CBS’ “Face the Nation,” Pelosi offered her strongest endorsement to-date of the 14th Amendment option, which holds that Congress doesn’t have the power to use the debt ceiling as a hostage-taking device because the validity of the debt “shall not be questioned.”

Nancy Pelosi: Well, you ask the Republicans, because we always passed the debt ceiling. When President Bush was president, as he was incurring these massive debts, and the Republicans weren’t saying ‘boo’ at the time. There should be, this is a conversation where there should be no doubt. In fact, if I were president, I’d use the 14th Amendment, which says that the debt of the United States will always be paid.Bob Schieffer: You would just go ahead and do it, you wouldn’t wait for the Congress?

Nancy Pelosi: I would just go do it. But the Congress has incurred much of this debt. And so what are you saying, we incurred it but we’re not going to pay it? If you want to say, ‘We are not going to do it so much in the future,’ well that’s another thing. But you can’t say, ‘I’m not paying my past debts.’

Share on your Network

Related

About the Author

Politisite delivers the latest Breaking Political News, Debate Coverage, Election Results, Commentary and Analysis. We provide in-depth news with special reports and interactive political coverage.
Politisite was a pioneer in internet political news gathering and dissemination. Politisite came live in early 1998 and become the first internet only news source to cover local, state, and national political campaigns, debates and elections. Before there were the terms Blog, Blogger, New Media, or Crowd-sourcing, Politisite was developing what has become the standard in political news coverage, long before most political sites were even conceived. The Name ‘Politisite” simply means Political Website.